Simon Kernick: Deadline

'Bad. Very bad.'

'Shit, I'm sorry to hear that,' he said, but she could almost hear the smirk in his voice. Jimmy Galante was not the kind of man who wasted time or effort on sympathy. 'How did you get my number? You been keeping tabs on me, Andrea?'

She had, but she wasn't going to tell him that. At least not yet. 'Someone gave it to me.'

'Oh yeah? Who?'

'That doesn't matter. What matters is I need your help.'

'To do what?'

Andrea took a deep breath, looked round in the gloom. 'My daughter's been kidnapped. I need you to help me get her back.'

Jimmy's husky trademark chuckle rumbled down the line again. There was something inherently cruel in it. It made Andrea think of a child pulling the wings off a butterfly, or cutting a worm into quarters, and it still made her nervous, even now, years afterwards.

'Sure, Andrea, whatever you say. You don't speak to me for God knows how many years-'

'You haven't been here. You've been in Spain.'

'You could have called,' he snapped. 'In all that time, you could have fucking called. But you didn't bother, did you? Because you didn't want nothing then, but now you do, so it's' – and here he did a nasty, high-pitched imitation of Andrea – 'please, Jimmy, help me find my daughter, some nasty man's kidnapped her.' He chuckled again. 'It don't work like that, babe. I've got business interests over here now. What do I want to come back to a shithole like England for? Fuck that for a game of soldiers.'

Andrea sighed. She'd been expecting this, but it still hurt to hear his complete lack of interest, either in her or in Emma. But his reaction told her something else too. Jimmy Galante, for all his faults, wasn't involved in this. If he had been, he'd have asked more questions.

'I want you to help me, Jimmy,' said Andrea, knowing that the sudden firmness in her tone was born of desperation.

'Sorry, babe, forget it. You still ain't given me a good reason why I should.'

'Because,' she answered, 'Emma isn't just my daughter. She's yours too.'

There was a long silence at the other end, and then Jimmy started to say something, but Andrea cut him off, pressing her advantage. 'Emma's fourteen years old. Her birthday's April the second. Think of the timing, Jimmy.'

'I can't think that far back. It's been too long.'

'Try. Fifteen years ago, the summer of 1992. We were together, weren't we? That's when I got pregnant. Just before you left.'

'How the fuck do I know she's mine?' he barked. 'You was married, Andrea. Remember? You was the one shagging around behind your old man's back. Or has that conveniently slipped your mind now as well?'

'Billy was impotent,' she said, not wanting to speak ill of her dead husband, but knowing that she had no choice. 'And you were the only man I was sleeping with then. She's yours, Jimmy. Face it. Your child. And now some bastard's taken her.'

She could almost hear the cogs whirring as he thought things over down the other end of the phone. This time she left him to it.

'What's happened then?' he asked eventually, a tone of resignation in his voice.

For the first time since the phone call more than three hours earlier, Andrea experienced a tiny, barely perceptible twinge of optimism. It seemed like she might be getting Jimmy Galante onside, which meant there was a chance she was no longer facing this nightmare alone.

Constantly mentioning Emma by name, and keeping her voice as quiet as possible, she detailed the evening's events, trying not to leave anything out. When she was finished, Jimmy asked her if she could raise the money in the time she'd been given, and she told him that she reckoned she could. 'It's not going to be easy, but I can manage it,' she said.

'And your new old man… he's missing?'

'Yes,' she said slowly. 'He is.'

'You certainly know how to pick 'em, don't you, babe?'

'Don't, Jimmy.'

'Think he might be involved?'

'To be honest, I can't see it, but…' She paused a moment. 'But I can't say for sure.'

'All right. What's his name?'

'Pat Phelan.'

'Don't know the name.'

'He's from Finchley.'

'I know a couple of people up that end of town. I'll ask around. You haven't gone to the cops, then?'

'No. And I don't intend to either.'

'Good, no point involving those bastards. So, what do you need me to do?'

'I just need you here with me, OK? I'd feel better. After all, you are her dad.'

'I'd better be, Andrea,' he said ominously, his voice barely more than a whisper. 'Because if I'm not, and you've dragged me back under false pretences, then I really ain't going to be very happy at all. You understand what I mean?'

There was no doubt at all what he meant. There never was when Jimmy talked like that. 'Yeah, I understand,' she answered. 'But you are. I promise you that. You are.'

There was another pause.

'I'll be on the first available flight into Heathrow tomorrow,' he said at last. 'I'll call you.'

'Thanks.'

'Don't thank me,' he said blankly. 'I ain't doing it for you.' And he hung up.

Andrea exhaled loudly as she flicked the phone shut. Now there really was no going back. Part of her was afraid of what involving Jimmy was going to mean for Emma's safe release. Jimmy was a violent man. He was capable of inflicting serious injury, even killing someone, but perhaps, in the end, that was what she wanted. Revenge on the people who'd abducted her daughter and put her through such pain. And Jimmy was no fool. He wouldn't rush in guns blazing and put Emma and everyone else in danger. He possessed an animal cunning, an ability to sniff out danger, something that had served him well in the past and something, she knew, he wouldn't have lost, even during his years in Spain. You didn't lose cunning like that. It was instinctive. And she needed someone with it in her corner.

She went back inside and locked the door behind her, feeling a little better. At least she'd actually done something now, and the paralysis born of utter helplessness which had affected her all evening seemed to dissipate a little. She drank another glass of water, smoked a last cigarette, and thought about having another brandy, but decided against it. Andrea had a strong tolerance of alcohol, having consumed it regularly throughout her adult life, but she'd had more than enough tonight. She needed to keep her wits about her. It would have been all too easy simply to lose herself in the oblivion of the bottle, and behaviour like that wouldn't help Emma.

Emma. Her baby. A fourteen-year-old girl enduring her first night as the prisoner of those animals.

If she's still alive…

Andrea stopped the thought, took a deep breath and told herself not to weaken.

'Think positive. They won't hurt her. They want money.'

She repeated it to herself three times, praying to God that it was true. Then, with slow, listless movements, she got herself ready for bed knowing that, for better or for worse, Jimmy would be here tomorrow. Jimmy Galante. Armed robber, violent thug, and possibly her only hope.

As she lay under the silk sheets in the master bedroom, staring at the ceiling, with a gap beside her where Pat usually lay, it wasn't her husband she was thinking about. It was Emma.

And Jimmy.

Jimmy Galante had always been a smooth bastard. Now forty, two years older than Andrea, he still looked damn good as he walked out of the arrivals gate at Heathrow's Terminal One, dressed in a tailored suit and open-neck shirt, and Andrea noticed more than one pair of female eyes glancing at him as he walked across the concourse with a casual confidence that bordered on arrogance. Tall, broad-shouldered and tanned, his thick wavy black hair was longer than she remembered, but still as lustrous as it had been all those years ago. Even under the current circumstances, even after all these years, Andrea still felt a twinge of excitement. She wondered what it was about her, why she always seemed to go for the smooth bastards. It was something her business partner, Isobel, had once asked her, with more than a hint of disapproval in her voice, and it was a question she hadn't attempted to answer. Some women just go for the wrong sort of men, Andrea told herself, and maybe she was one of them.